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The bibliography has been made as complete as possible, but as Mr. Ridley has published, over a long period, a very large amount of material covering a very wide field of pure and applied botany, the compilers realise that a number of papers may have been overlooked.  During 63 years of activity Mr. Ridley has published, according to his bibliography, more than 500 books, papers and notes, amounting to nearly 10,000 printed pages. Amongst the more important works may be mentioned his various papers on Monocotyledons, on which he was a well known authority; and his various articles on plant dispersal, resulting in his monumental "Dispersal of Plants throughout the World", published when he was 75, an age at which most authors are content to enjoy a well earned rest. His life-work, however, has beeen devoted to Malayan botany, to the knowledge of which he has contributed largely, both as a writer and as a keen collector.

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Mr. H. N. Ridley, C.M.G., F.R.S., was Director of Gardens, Straits Settlements from 1888 to 1911 and for the period 1888 to 1894 was also Director of Forests, Straits Settlements. Probably but few people at the present time realise how great a debt Malaya as a whole owes to Ridley for his services in laying a sure foundation for that agricultural development which subsequently brought so much prosperity to this country. The work which Ridley did during his period of service in Malaya was only rendered possible by his tireless energy and enthusiasm and his wide knowledge of biology, including both botany and zoology. He specialised more particularly in botany, including in that term pure botany as a science and botany as applied to forestry and agriculture, but his knowledge of zoology enabled him to render further services to agriculturists by devising measures for the control of insect pests of various crops. For about twelve years of his service Ridley with his staff of two or three European Officers serving as Superintendents or Assistant Superintendents of Gardens and Forests in Singapore, Malacca and Penang, represented the only organisation in the Colony or the Native States, as they were then known, to which agriculturists could apply for technical advice and assistance. The need for such assistance naturally increased steadily throughout this period, since it covers the early extension of large scale agriculture in the Malay States. When it is remembered that the whole period of his service corresponds closely with that of the growth of rubber industry in this country from its earliest infancy to the great boom of 1910-1911, it becomes possible to realise how great were the calls made on Ridley and his staff. The demands from the agricultural community for planting material Para rubber and for advice on every aspect of this new and quite unknown crop occupied in themselves a large share of the time of ridley and his assistants. In spite, however, of the demands of the growing rubber industry and the claims of the more purely scientific aspect of botany as represented by the maintenance of the Botanic Gardens in Singapore and the collection, identification and description of local plants, Ridley was able to carry out work on a range of plants which comprised most of the actual or potential tropical crops known. Ridley's work on rubber is dealt with in a separate article in this number, so that the remarks which follow deal only with some of his work on the other crops.

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In the Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie XVII (1858 - 59), pp. 243 seq. the celebrated ichtryologist P. Bleeker published a letter, dated 8 August, 1858, written to him by the Swiss botanist-collector Heinrich Zollinger, then residing in the Dutch Indies, on the Natural History of Madura, a small island north of the eastern part of Java. In this letter Zollinger describes a trip made that year by him over the island in the company of N. A. Th. Arriens, then Resident ( i.e. Commissioner) of Madura. On page 245 of his description Zollinger says: " A new genus of the family Balsaminaceae is perhaps the most important discovery. The plant grows on calcareous rocks between 600 and 800 feet above sea level and has entirely the structure of the common Balsams. Instead of a spur one of the petals bears a short sack ending in two obtuse points. The same petal (this is an error ; see description below) is provided at its apex with a beautiful cordate standard. On account of this character I have called the plant "Semeiocardium arriensii. To my regret I found only two ripe seeds which, however, did not germinate." Here matters rested until J. K. Hasskarl in 1863 (Annales Musei Botanici Lugduno-Batavi, I, pp. 142 seq.) gave a monograph of Indian Polygalaceae. He examined i.a. the type-specimen of Semeiocardium arriensii collected by Zollinger (No. 3956) bearing on its ticket the note "corolla 4-color ; vexillum cordatum, "cyaneum, albido-marginatum ; saccus bifidus, luteus, purpureo-"maculatus". The flowers of Zollinger's specimen being clearly in a bad state of preservation Hasskarl not only could not find the sack or spur but moreover was led into the error of mistaking the plant for Polygalacea. The genus Semeiocardium, of which he gave no diagnosis was retained by him and he brought to it, besides S. arriensii Zoll., three species from British India. Of S. arriensii he gave a diagnosis, but his description of the inflorescences, flowers, fruits and seeds, apparently taken from another specimen, is entirely erroneous. In Hooker's Flora of British India I, 201 (1872) Alfred W. Bennett reduced the three Indian species of Semeiocardium to Polygala triphylla Ham., a plant which does not occur in Java, nor in Madura. He did not mention Semeiocardium arriensii. R. Chodat in his Monographia Polygalacearum, 2me parite (Memoires de la Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve XXXI, Seconde Partie, 1892/93, p. 41), apparently not having seen good specimens of Semeiocardium arriensii considered Semeiocardium to be a section of Polygala. To this section he reckoned, besides Polygala triphylla Ham., only the insufficiently known P. cardiocarpa Kurz. Semeiocardium arriensii Zoll. was reduced by him to Polygala triphylla. I myself, having seen only very bad materials, committed the same mistake in my Schoolflora voor Java (1911), p. 77. But in 1915 I had, thanks to Dr. J. C. Koningsberger, then Director of Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens and an ardent promotor of the floristic investigation of Java and surrounding islands, the occasion of making a botanical trip to Madura. On this trip I had the good fortune to re-discover the plant evidently meant by Zollinger, who was, after all, much too able a botanist to make a mistake a Balsaminacea for a Polygalacea. The plant showed the characters mentioned by Zollinger in his short description, and which grew indeed on calcareous rocks, proved to be a true Balsaminacea, nearly related to Impatiens but differing from this genus (see below) by the 2 lateral and the 2 posticous petals being all of them connate into a rather large, bifid standard, and by the 4-celled (not 5-celled) ovary. In 1919 a slightly differing form of the same species was discovered by me in the Kangean Archipelago (east of Madura). I succeeded in bringing over living plants and seeds to the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens. The seed germinated poorly, but seeds thrown out by cultivated plants germinated now and then, always on rocks. In 1930 plants, offspring of those raised from seeds collected in Kangean, were still living in the Buitenzorg Gardens. I give below a description of the genus and the species, based on living plants.

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In Singapore there is an almost regular general heavy flowering of trees of Fagraea fragrans Roxb. in May. This flowering is shown to follow about four months after the break in the wet season which usually occurs some time in January. Observations of rainfall for ten days before the break in the weather, and for a week or more afterwards, are given; the fluctuations of date of this break are followed closely by fluctuations in the date of the general flowering of Cyrtophyllum trees.

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There is no day in Malaya when the fruit-body of some agaric cannot be found in the high forest, but twice each year, in the south at least, there is a season of three months when a "run of fungus" develops like the autumn crop in temperate countries. Fruit-bodies, never seen at other times, then appear in great numbers with a succession of early, mid- and late season forms. The forest may be so full of toadstools of all sizes, shapes, colours, in troops on the ground and on fallen wood and in myriads on dead leaves and sticks, that one cannot step without treading on them, and each kind has its season of but a few days or a week when it is in full fruit. I learnt of these seasons first in the Gardens Jungle, over the few acres of which I searched almost daily in the year 1929, and then from repeated collecting in the forests of Singapore and south Johore and from occasional visits to more distant parts of the country. In the Gardens Jungle, also, I set myself to discover the exact times of inception of fruit-bodies but their periods of development and maturiity so that I could determine the life of different kinds of fruit-body and the climate stimulus to which their mycelia responded. I have collected much information on nearly a hundred species but only a few general facts can be mentioned in this place.

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After some theoretical considerations on modern phylogenetical taxonomy as a discipline, dealing with morphological as well as geographical evolution and newly influenced by Genetics, it is stated that next to Paleobotany two categories of data may be considered important for our ideas on Phylogeny, viz. the present distribution of species and that of features. This is illustrated by examples taken from the Eumadhuceae, a group of East-Asiatic to Polynesian Sapotaceae. It is shown that the former Sunda-land is the most probable place of origin of this group and that the species have migrated both westward (India, Ceylon, Indochina) and eastward (Polynesia). Evidence for this suggestion is found in the distribution and evolution of certain features, especially in the reduction of the number of carpels in both directions mentioned. The paper was stimulated by the discovery of Madhuca-species, M. Ridleyi, from British Malaya, the gynaecium of which shows the highest number of carpels known in the whole group. A decription of this species is added.

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Although Chonemorpha macrophylla G. Don is the type of the genus as currently interpreted, it is a species whose limits are not yet clearly defined, with the result that more than one species are included under that specific name, and this holds good even after the exclusion of the Philippine and Javanese material that was previously referred here. It is true that Ridley, acting on Stapf's suggestions on this matter, had (in Agric. Bull. Straits & Fed. Malay States X, 1911, pp. 146 - 148) created two new specific epithets, C. penangensis and C. Rheedei, hoping to straighten out the matter. But as he did not bring out fully the chief characters that distinguish the three species, his paper did not succeed in making matters much clearer, and moreover his paper with Stapf's suggestions being published in a periodical of purely agricultural and local interest, failed to attract the attention of horticulturists and systematists even to the fact that C. macrophylla as then interpreted was being regarded as mixed species. It is not surprising therefore that the two Supplements to Index Kewensis for 1911-15 and 1916-20, published respectively in 1921 and 1926, were issued without including Ridley's two new species, their inclusion not appearing until 1929 when the Supplement for 1921-25 was issued and when presumably the compliers' attention was drawn to Ridley's paper through a reference made to it in Ridley's Flora II, 1923. In the hope, therefore, that the circumscription of C. macrophylla G. Don may become clear, and that the separation of the species usually confused with it may be easier. I have prepared the Key and the Enumeration given below. This paper not being a complete revision of the genus, I limit myself to giving only those synonyms and references which I consider may be useful to interpret the species correctly. I have also described a new species C. assamensis, based on a specimen from Assam. The species are so variable as regards to hairiness and size of the leaves that it is not easy to distinguish them on that character. The general outline of the leaves, the comparative size of the corolla and the hairiness, size and shape of the calyx are more stable characters and so advantage is taken of them in framing the key. The hairiness of the pistil is apparently a useful character in separating these species, and may form an important basis in subdividing such polymorphous species as C. macrophylla and C. mollis; but the material at my disposal was so meagre in flowers that I did not feel myself justified to detach flowers from the authentic specimens for the purpose of dissection. From the enumeration given below it will be evident that the success of my inquiry into the various species commonly referred to C. macrophylla is due principally to the rich material preserved in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta. My thanks are therefore due to the Director of that instituition for the loan of the specimens.

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